Introduction
Australian Universities Review is proud to present this special edition highlighting issues critical to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation and success in higher education. The tertiary education sector is in need of major reforms to educational and funding policies in order to adequately address the higher educational requirements of Indigenous Australians. The latest census figures indicate Indigenous disadvantage in society as a whole is on the increase at the same time as Indigenous enrolments in higher education are declining. The current cohort of Indigenous students in higher education is only one-third of the number of Indigenous Australians currently serving custodial orders.
In 1990 the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended the establishment of a Process of Reconciliation between the Australian Government and Indigenous Australians to produce a document of reconciliation (or treaty), in order to redress injustices against Indigenous peoples in the two centuries since European colonisation. The process of reconciliation was to include the identification of priority areas of Indigenous disadvantage (including education and employment) and the development and implementation of responses, to be funded by state and federal governments. The current prime minister has turned his back on that process, and that commitment, in favour of an often adversarily-defined policy of ‘Practical Reconciliation’.
In this issue Greg Crough conducts ‘A practical critique of practical reconciliation’ in the context of these policies’ ability to redress historical injustices against Indigenous Australians. He argues that ‘practical reconciliation’ essentially represents ‘more of the same’ as the ‘mainstreaming’ policy approach that has dominated the last four decades of public policy. There have been, and continue to be, some incremental improvements in specific services in remote communities, but these are in the wider context of a marked decline in living standards and housing for most Indigenous Australians. Funding from a distance that is insensitive to economic conditions and outcomes will have little effect on these conditions. Only new funding mechanisms driven by what Crough calls a ‘rights agenda’, and informed by the principle of self-determination, can provide Indigenous communities with a real incentive to break the cycle of despair.
Given the many millions of dollars that Australian governments past and present have poured into policies designed to redress Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples disadvantage in education and employment, ‘Indigenous Australian participation in higher education: The realities of practical reconciliation’ by Wendy Brabham, John Henry, Esme Bamblett and Jennifer Bates provides an even more sobering commentary on the current policy environment. Brabham et al argue that in the context of access to higher education, the ‘mainstreaming’ policies of the current government actually constitute a marked reversal for Indigenous Australians. The ‘mainstreaming’ of ABSTUDY, the main source of support for Indigenous students in higher education – which has shifted benefits to other programs, and realigned support in line with other, non-Indigenous programs designed for other purposes - has resulted in markedly reduced levels of access for the most numerous categories of Indigenous students: mature-aged students and women. Current forecasts of Indigenous enrolment by 2005 suggest figures not much more than a half of those predicted just a few years ago.
The historical neglect of Indigenous studies in the Australian school and higher education systems has led, until quite recently, to a whitewashed portrayal of Indigenous peoples and cultures. Greg McConville argues that Australians generally need to relearn all they have been taught about Indigenous people. To this end educational institutions need to engage Indigenous people in the development and delivery of compulsory Indigenous studies based on local culture and history. And universities in particular need to develop programs and strategies designed to increase both the numbers and the job security of Indigenous teaching and administrative staff.
In turn Daryle Rigney and Gus Worby discuss the complexities of ethical clearances for work on Indigenous issues. On the one hand they argue that such processes should be obligatory for university research, in order to avoid the repetition of past injustices against Indigenous people in the name of scholarship and science. On the other they acknowledge the strain such a role places upon Indigenous university staff as assessors of such applications.
An average life expectancy less than the retirement age, and a working life twenty years less than the national average, are two significant factors contributing to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inter-generational poverty. With the Government placing more emphasis on the worker to provide for their own retirement the current superannuation regulations are a major concern for Indigenous Australians. In his ‘Superannuation issues for Indigenous Australians’, Brad Pragnell, principal policy advisor for the Australian Superannuation Funds Association, examines the factors for the disproportionately low level of Indigenous superannuation and recommends strategies to provide Indigenous Australians with decent retirement incomes.
Like other contributors, Joel Wright sees the current government’s Indigenous policies as a return to older, paternalistic models of social provision for Indigenous peoples. The lack of Indigenous parliamentary representation elected by Indigenous people represents the barrier to Indigenous self-determination. Wright sees education as the key to achieving a position where the Australian Government is prepared to negotiate a Treaty with the Indigenous peoples of Australia. And he argues for a system of regional agreements around cultural research, restoration and tourism on the one hand, and Indigenous legal and medical services on the other, as the potential basis for a more productive approach to Indigenous self-sufficiency and self-determination.
While the articles here present a broad and diverse range of opinions, they all touch at one point or another upon the issue which has been so influential in the historical treatment of Indigenous Australians: racism, and racially-inflected conceptions of social relations. Laksiri Jayasuriya’s ‘Understanding Australian Racism’ both charts this history and attempts to account for the diversity of racialised conceptions of the nation and public life. In particular, he distinguishes between the ‘blood’-based racism of the nineteenth century, and the ‘cultural difference’ -based racism of the twentieth, with their differing legacies of discrimination and exclusion. The legacies of colonisation and colonialism still cast a heavy shadow over our current debates over cultural nationhood, immigration and exclusion.
Joel Wright – Indigenous Issue Guest Editor
David Burchell – Chair, AUR Board